Turning Operational Complexity Into Strategic Control.
Vertex Construction had grown into larger and more profitable projects, but its internal operations had not evolved at the same pace. Each project operated differently, making visibility, forecasting, and decision making increasingly difficult. The company was winning larger projects, but the margin on those projects was eroding. Gilva Labs helped transform project management into business management.
Challenge
Vertex's growth had exposed a fundamental problem: the company had no standard way to run a project. Each of the twelve project managers had their own system—spreadsheets, whiteboards, notebooks, or memory. The executive team learned about cost overruns when the project was already 80% complete. Change orders were tracked inconsistently, with an average of 23 days between approval and entry into the financial system. Subcontractor payments were processed manually, with no centralized view of committed costs. The company was not losing projects. It was losing money on the projects it won.
Approach
We embedded with project teams, documented operational workflows, and redesigned the way information moved across field operations, project management, and executive leadership. The pattern was consistent: the field knew what was happening, but that knowledge traveled slowly and inconsistently to the office.
Solution
Vertex evolved into a business where every project operated from the same operational framework, giving leadership the confidence to make decisions with real-time business visibility instead of historical reporting. Project managers still manage their projects—but they manage them from a single source of truth.
Outcome
Services Applied
Included Solutions
"Before Gilva, we knew how we did at the end of the job. Now we know how we're doing on every job, every week. That changes how we manage, bid, and grow. We stopped managing projects independently and started managing the business as one organization."